


black ash on the funeral pyre

by lagazzraladra



Category: The Iliad - Homer
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lagazzraladra/pseuds/lagazzraladra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>patroclus laughs and their teeth clash in a kiss and everything is golden and beautiful</p>
            </blockquote>





	black ash on the funeral pyre

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is 100% based upon a fanmix i did last month, so if you don't listen to that mix this fic won't make much sense. [here's the mix](http://danverrs.tumblr.com/post/43604708270/black-ash-an-achilles-patroclus-mix-in-the) and enjoy

**i.**

they are going to die.

patroclus knows this, as sure as he knows anything.

“what makes you think i enjoy being lead to the flood?” partroclus asks. achilles' head is resting on his chest and he cards his fingers through his short, blonde hair as he speaks.

achilles smiles up at him, “there will be no flood, for i shall build a dam.”

**ii.**

achilles will come back from a day on the battle field and his breath will come out in short _“huhs”_. he will be covered in sweat and blood and he will shine with it. his own blood will be up from adrenaline and no matter what, the first person he seeks out when returning is patroclus.

patroclus will come back from a day on the battle field and he will look at achilles and think _“warkind, your time has come”_ because achilles has been built so beautifully for the slaughter of man. he wears the blood of the trojans like others wear a fine cloak (a fine cloak that patroclus cannot wait to divest him of).

they will both come back from a day on the battle field hungry for the other.

**iii.**

sometimes, patroclus will wake in the early morning, before anyone else in the camp, and he will look down at achilles, splayed across his chest. he will think _“now is the only time I know”_ and it is true. he cannot remember a life worth remembering before achilles. he does not want to remember a life without achilles, nor does he want to ponder it.

he would surely die from missing him.

**iv.**

he will tie his own noose with his rage and gladly hang himself from it.

**v.**

there is a prophecy. the gods do not allow mortals to feint destiny. achilles will die, yet he denies it. he says that there is a way around it.

“the universe is going to catch you,” patroclus warns him.

“let it,” says achilles, “and let it sweep you up with me.” and so does achilles gather patroclus up into his arms to better kiss him on his sweet and kind mouth.

**vi.**

when it is time for patroclus’ body to burn, achilles does not let it go easily. he refuses to take it to the pyre. he smears his body with black ash and soot. he cries. he loves too much. he wants them to be burned together. he kills hector and refuses to honor his body. he goes looking for the greatest warriors so that he may end his own life. he does a thousand things wrong. 

_"my rage, my fury would drive me now to hack your flesh away and eat you raw – such agonies you have caused me"_

he is still in agony, he is always in agony, so when it finally comes, the arrow in his heel feels like absolution.

**vii.**

“we are surrounded by fallen kings,” achilles says. he is angry at the dishonor that agamemnon has done to him. he curses them all. he is blinded by his rage and cannot, will not see the error in his ways.

“you are a fallen king,” patroclus says, and not without contempt.

**viii.**

achilles plays a song on the lyre, he knows not when he wrote it, but he knows who he wrote it for. at his side sits patroclus, who smiles up at him, enraptured;

“that was a very pretty tune,” patroclus says.

“you think?”

“yes, what was it about?”

“you.”

and patroclus laughs and their teeth clash in a kiss and everything is golden and beautiful.

they are dead.

**ix.**

early afternoon light spills out across the floor of their tent. their breathing is steady and in time. achilles’ head rests upon patroclus’ chest and patroclus is carding his fingers through his short, blonde hair.

“do you think,” patroclus asks, “that they’ll forget us?”

achilles smiles up at him, “we’ll make sure they can’t.”


End file.
